Microbiome Lipid Metabolism

Stacey Heaver

 

Lipids are more than just structural components of membranes or energy storage in adipocytes – they form a diverse array of molecular structures that also serve bioactive roles in all kingdoms of life. Our guts are filled with microbes that synthesize their own lipids and modify lipids from their host or diet. These gut microbe-derived lipids can interact both with other bacteria and their human host, altering host metabolism, signaling, and immunity.

Different bacterial species produce lipids which help them adapt to the ecological niche in which they live. Excitingly, gut bacteria exhibit a remarkable structural diversity of lipids, many of which remain uncharacterized. The lipid team in the Dept. of Microbiome Science uses genetic, biochemical, and mass spectrometry-based approaches to:

• characterize the diversity of gut microbial lipids
• identify the metabolic pathways responsible for their biosynthesis
• investigate how these bacterial lipids interact with their mammalian hosts